Fantastic Retro Mint Museum of Toys

12 September, 2009Saturday

What self-respecting designer wouldn't visit a retro toy museum? Aside from Linh, we met up with three other designers from Singapore to visit the five-storey Mint Museum of Toys on Seah Street in Singapore City. Mint stands for Moment of Imagination and Nostalgia with Toys.

The Mint Museum is the world's first purpose-built museum for toys. It showcases an extensive collection of over fifty thousand vintage toys from over twenty five countries in an award-winning contemporary building. As a result, it's regarded as one of the finest collections in the world and is the largest in Southeast Asia.

All the toys displayed in the museum are the lifetime collection of Singaporean, Mr Chang Yang Fa. An engineering consultant, Chang still has his first toy, a Matchbox 73 RAF refueling truck he bought when he was 6.

The toys - many still in their original packaging - were arranged by theme per floor, rather than by country of origin. In fact, as well as their place of origin, many were often labeled as "prototypes" as well, prompting us to wonder how Chang was lucky enough to get his hands on them, the nature of which meant some objects were the only one of their kind.

Taking the lift up (the doors of which are emblazoned with a rocket print), we started at the top floor of the Mint Museum and made our way down from there. Below are more photos of the things we saw on display.

Level 5 - Outerspace

Level 4 - Characters

Level 3 - Childhood Favourites

Level 2 - Collectibles

Level 1 - Mint Shop and Entrance

The Mint Museum is very new having only opened in May 2006. One of the objectives of the museum is to "reach out to the child in every one of us" and looking at it's retro treasures on offer, no one who has had a childhood would be immune to its charms.

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Comments

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)25/01/10 at 10:57 PMJust seeing your photos makes me want to go back again! MINT was definitely one of the highlights of my Singapore trip. It was fascinating to see the variety of toys, their design and materials, and the subjects that caught the public's fancy.
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